Meaning and Moxie After 50
Looking for more inspiration and possibility in midlife and beyond? Join host Leslie Maloney, proud wife, mom, author and teacher, as she talks with people finding Meaning and Moxie in their life after 50.
Meaning and Moxie After 50
#1 of the Top Ten from 2024/Miss Janet's Appalachian Adventure: Tales of Trail Magic and Community
Join us for an exploration of the Appalachian Trail with a very special guest, Janet Hensley, known throughout the hiking world as Miss Janet. Her two-decade-long role as a trail angel has made her a cherished figure among hikers, and her story brings to life the vibrant community and tales from this iconic path. Growing up near a trailhead in East Tennessee, Miss Janet shares how the diverse stories of hikers first captured her imagination and how the trail community became an integral part of her life, even when she tried to step away. From Georgia to Maine, the trail is more than a physical journey; it’s a tapestry of adventure and human connection.
Discover the magic of the trail as we uncover tales of unexpected kindness and the network of support that every hiker finds along the way. Miss Janet takes us through the unique world of hiker hostels, community gatherings like Hiker Thanksgiving, and the fascinating tradition of trail names that allow for personal reinvention. The Appalachian Trail isn't just a walking path; it’s a place where stories are shared, lifelong friendships are forged, and personal transformations happen. The shared experiences on the trail encourage hikers to push beyond their comfort zones, and Miss Janet’s insights and anecdotes beautifully illustrate the community’s remarkable spirit.
As we wrap up, we reflect on the enduring impact of long-distance hiking on people’s lives, especially the courage of those who step onto the trail, defying societal expectations. Miss Janet discusses the sense of fulfillment she finds in the trail community, living a life rich in human connections rather than traditional measures of success. The stories and gratitude she has received over the years underscore the deep bonds formed among those who dare to take this journey. With heartfelt thanks to our listeners, we encourage you to engage with this inspiring community and consider how the trail might influence your own adventures.
Find Miss Janet at the links below.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themissjanet?mibextid=ZbWKWL
IG: https://www.instagram.com/themissjanet? igsh=MTE2ZWRqMmJmMXMOMg==
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dexterontheat?_t=8juzHtKPYsw&_r=1
Venmo: https://venmo.com/u/TheMissJanet
**The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. Information on this podcast may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This podcast contains links to other third party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser.
Hi everybody, happy New Year and we are on number one of our favorites from 2024. And this is my interview I did with Janet Hensley, also known as Miss Janet. She is a legendary figure on the Appalachian Trail, lovingly known as the fairy godmother to countless hikers. For over two decades she has been out in the trail community and she's basically a roving trail angel who offers advice, encouragement and practical support to hikers on their journey. Miss Janet is famous for her hiker feeds, impromptu trailside meals and her van, a mobile haven for weary adventurers. Her passion goes way beyond physical support because she offers a spirit, a deep spirit of camaraderie and perseverance, reminding hikers to embrace the journey, not just the destination. She's a former hostel owner and she continues to inspire the trail community with her unwavering kindness, deep wisdom and boundless energy. Ms Janet is truly a living legend, embodying the heart and soul of the Appalachian Trail. Hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 1:I'm Leslie Maloney, retirement coach and podcast host. I'm all about helping you navigate the many transitions of this next chapter, from redefining purpose to finding joy in the everyday. We dive into real stories, practical tips and inspiring conversations. Real stories, practical tips and inspiring conversations. So, whether you've already retired, you're planning for it, or you're just starting to think about what's next. Join me for this fun and fearless exploration of life's second act, because life after 50 isn't the end of the story. No, far from it. It's where the magic truly begins. Go to my website meaninginmoxieafter50.com for more information. And now let's get going with this week's episode. So thank you so much, janet, for being here today.
Speaker 2:Hi, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're good, I'm good, I'm good. Thank you for asking me yeah, so just give the audience a little bit of background about who you are and what has brought you to this point in your life.
Speaker 2:Wow brought you to this point in your life. Wow, oh, you know they say you need an elevator speech. That's about four or five sentences. You know that explains your, your cause and what you're doing. Boy, that's hard to do. That's hard to tie 30 years up in just a few minutes.
Speaker 2:But, um, yeah, I found this trail totally by accident when I was a child and we had moved close to a trailhead and during the day my mother would be out in the yard and hikers would walk by on their way to town. And and we learned real quick. You know what Appalachian trail hikers were, at a time when most people in the community didn't have a clue. All it was was homeless people walking around as far as they were concerned. And so right away, my mom's interest, you know, introduced us to people that their stories were just like different. They were from other places, they weren't from here. They had stories, they had been places, they had educations, they had very different you you know socioeconomic and religious backgrounds and for a kid living in east Tennessee in a community like this, it was such an amazing, refreshing outlook on the world. It made my world as a kid look so much bigger than the people around me and so so I did the grow up, get married, come back home a few years later and there were more hikers than I'd ever seen when I, when I was growing up.
Speaker 2:So I just started picking people up and giving them rides. And you know, they say you got to be careful if you let strays follow you home because they don't ever go away and you've got to feed them. You know it's always going to be a thing, but I tell people all the time I found the trail at a period of time that I had very little personal time and very little adult interaction. You know, between working with children and raising children alone as a single parent I didn't have a lot of extra time. So that one day a week that I got started working with Appalachian Trail Hikers here just right here in my backyard kind of saved my life in a lot of ways. And you know it's been one of those things that over the last 30 years, you know I'm I'm not pull away a little bit, thinking that I'm going to go in a different direction, but the trail always calls me back like it does for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:It is you know, it's just like spring or fever. People don't realize you don't have to have hiked the entire Appalachian Trail for things like spring or fever, you know, and that excitement about the beginning of the season and the stories, you know it's, it's very contagious and addictive.
Speaker 1:So for the listeners who don't or aren't familiar so much with the Appalachian Trail and the hiking, can you hold on one second?
Speaker 2:Sure, you hear him. No, yeah, that's my, because I put him in another room oh okay, okay, do you want?
Speaker 1:to let him out or no. Dexter, be quiet. Whatever you think, whatever you think we'll see if it works I doubt it okay. So for the listener who doesn't know about Springer and Appalachian Trail, the Springer Mountain is where the Appalachian Trail starts in Georgia, north Georgia. It goes all the way to Maine and Mount Katahdin uh, maine, and it's 2200, a little over 2200 miles, correct, I think, this year's official mileage because for some reason we really really, really like those 0.7 kind of things in our in our hiking world.
Speaker 2:So I think this year it's 193.7 miles, I think is maybe the official mileage. I'd have to check that because it changes on a regular basis depending on on things that you know are being worked on or relocations of the trail, you know, or new sections that are being built. But yeah, it's almost almost 2200 miles from, you know, springer Mountain, georgia, just north of Atlanta, to Katahdin, just south of the Canadian border.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you were a little girl and you were seeing all these people going by your house, right by the trail. That's what planted the seed meeting all these people from all over the world. Certainly the country and it really, it really opened your world up, broadened you, I imagine, in a lot of different ways. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:In a lot of different ways, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And then you. So then you move back a few years later.
Speaker 2:I don't know, a decade later, something like that I don't know how long were you away About 10 years that I was, you know, going to school, working on a degree in in special ed and early childhood development. I had a childcare center. I was raising children. I was a PTA president, you know I was. I was a mom and that was my. You know that was my full time double time job and I'm looking at, you know, becoming something with initials. You know, like you know, I was working on a doctorate in psychology at one point and it was going to be something that was going to. I found out I was maybe a better case study than a student when it came to most of my abnormal psychology.
Speaker 2:So you know, but the trail for all of us at different times but one of my favorite bumper stickers on my van, because my van is covered in memes and bumper stickers. You know that make you smile or think you know, because I was doing that a long time before people started making memes on Facebook. I was in love with bumper stickers and one of my favorite bumper stickers says we're all here because we're not all there.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, I've been a big bumper sticker fan too. Yeah, I never thought about it. Yeah, those were like the first memes really, if you want to think about it.
Speaker 2:Definitely were.
Speaker 1:You found yourself back in eastern Tennessee and we're talking like the Appalachian, right in the mountains. There were North Carolina and Tennessee and and all those come together, beautiful, beautiful area and you start working. So for those of you who don't know and I know I said this in the introduction, but Miss Janet is infamous. She's an infamous trail angel for the Appalachian Trail.
Speaker 2:Infamous is good because if you just let people make up stories about you, you find out you're a whole lot more interesting than you really are, because their stories are like really good and I'm like, wow, did I have a good time? Well, what did I wear, you know? What was I wearing, you know? Oh, and I said that really awesome because that's the stuff I've heard about me over the years. I wasn't there for it, so I don't know. Definitely infamous is a good word, but uh, so it's been embellished.
Speaker 1:It's been been embellished in some cases definitely.
Speaker 2:Um, when I came back to Irwin and I had one day a week to be an adult and I spent a lot of time hiking on the Nolichucky River, doing whitewater rafting, camping, hanging out, because I didn't have time to develop a real social life.
Speaker 2:I only have one day, so in that I immediately started meeting people on the trail that needed a ride to town, that needed to go to the grocery store, and for years I did that on my weekends as often as I possibly could and then slowly started working with some of the local hospitality businesses that were starting to open between Hot Springs and Damascus.
Speaker 2:You know new hostels were opening and I was interested in what they were doing and it was a real interesting. You know the early the late 90s, early 2000s were a very interesting time when things were, the numbers of people hiking were starting to grow and the services available and the services that hikers were demanding was starting to change drastically from the 20 years before 2000. So I got real involved in that and then one day I said you know, I think maybe I want to do this and I had certain places that were just special to me. One was there was a place called well, elmer's Sunnybank Inn in Hot Springs, north Carolina, is one of bed and breakfast in a beautiful historical home and he's been there for 30 plus years now.
Speaker 1:Isn't he in his 80s now, or something like?
Speaker 2:that, yes, yes, and he. He had quite an effect on me because being able to sit down at a table and enjoy his amazing food and his formula for putting people together that don't know each other and that have come from all over the world and are sitting down together and getting them to to interact and get to know each other and I loved the way he did that and adopted a lot of his way of of interacting with hikers, which I've never gone wrong with. The only thing is I never went vegan. We did it all with meat, you know. So I did a sit down breakfast that often included five pounds of sausage, so I was never going to to go to, to go the the vegan route.
Speaker 2:We were southern all the way, but I did open my own place and I opened in 1999 and started hosting hikers very accidentally it wasn't on purpose because I was very much a den mother with my children. We didn't have sleepovers in our house. I didn't have friends in my house. I didn't have, you know, I didn't date, so I didn't have men in my home. My house was pretty much a fortress for my children and I was never much of a housekeeper, so I wasn't somebody that wanted people just dropping in on me and it was very accidental that I brought the very first hikers into my home to spend the night and it was a joy. It was hard and it was awkward and it was a joy. It was hard and it was awkward and it was wonderful. And in a couple of months I started making the plan to start to open my own place.
Speaker 1:So you talked about the formula putting people together. Can you share what that formula is? Can you share what that formula is?
Speaker 2:Oh, the very, very first thing is you have to come at this particular kind of business from some degree of service. You have to want to be helping somebody, because if you're just doing a hospitality business, and those are just customers and they're just numbers, that's a completely different business. So most hiker hostels, bed and breakfast, bunk and breakfast, like I had is definitely a service to the people that are hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Speaker 2:Elmer taught me to interact with people individually and then to put those people together and watch them interact with each other. One of the unique ways that he did that was his meals were family style sit down, everyone together, everyone at the same time, and if you were going to be staying there, that was part of your stay. So a lot of times hikers want to, you know, jump up like they're at a hotel and get a shuttle to the trailhead and start hiking. By 6 am. No-transcript, and I used it and still use it. I still use it in the van.
Speaker 2:Driving around with people is giving people a chance to answer some silly question, like if you were a famous work of art, what would you be If you have been famous for 15 minutes in your life? What were you famous for? And you can make that up if you want, because it's just for my entertainment, you know. But people introducing themselves and saying where they're from and maybe a little moment of saying what was your high of yesterday on the trail and what was your low and what's your goal for tomorrow. And it just created a set of circumstances where a meal became an event every day and it's been Thanksgiving day and it's been, you know, thanksgiving. You kind of got a little bit of that, because Thanksgiving is very much the way I did my home every day and you know it was casual. Everybody pitched in, everybody helped out and you put people together, you know to, you know, enjoy that sense of community that is so special.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For, for those of you who didn't get the reference there, myself, my husband and my son, we went to Miss Janet's hiker Thanksgiving this year, which was so amazing, so amazing. Our son completed the AT last summer, so and we you know, we've known about the AT, we've even done a little small sections of the AT, but I had no idea the community and the extent of the culture of the Appalachian Trail and just how amazing it is, and so we got to see a little piece of that at Hiker Thanksgiving and I think there were 75 people there, something like that this year. I mean, we like to do it every year.
Speaker 2:It was so much fun I love it and you know, and there were people there that have been doing it off and on for the past 10 years, since we started doing it annually uh, for the you know for the 20 years before. Uh, 2013, this was the 10th anniversary in hot springs. Um, you know for the 20 years before that. You know, I would have people just come to my family Thanksgiving. If you know, I would pick up Southbounders and take them to my family Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:One of the things that happened so special for me at Thanksgiving this year was a message that I got from a young man right before Thanksgiving and he said 25 years ago, I was alone in the woods and was going to be alone in the woods having a ramen bomb for Thanksgiving and you came and scooped me and my friends up and took us to your sister's house where a hundred of your closest family was having Thanksgiving and I had your sweet potato casserole, where a hundred of your closest family was having Thanksgiving, and I had your sweet potato casserole with toasted marshmallows on top and I'd never had that in my life and I loved it. It was my favorite dish at Thanksgiving. He said so the next year at home, he said I've only missed one Thanksgiving in all the years. You know however old he was. I've only missed one Thanksgiving in all the years.
Speaker 2:You know however old he was. I've only missed one Thanksgiving in my life being with my family and I was with you that year. He said so. That year I go home to my mom and I go. There's this thing called the sweet potato casserole and I need you to make Ms Janet sweet potato casserole for Thanksgiving. And she did. And he said what you don't know is that for the past 25 years we have miss janet's sweet potato casserole every year so I thought that's beautiful you know you, you're talking about one moment in a lifetime that turns into something that you're a part of someone else's.
Speaker 2:You know memories and tradition, and it was, it was, it was priceless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I, and I would venture to say that you have a lot of those that you probably don't even know about, because the community that you are creating and and and you know, I think, a lot of the reason why I mean, in general in society, I think we're lacking community and and people want more connection, and I think that's one of the reasons why people go out on the trail and they certainly find that community and you and others like you are setting the table so that those things can happen. That is huge.
Speaker 2:Oh, I was telling a story about my I attempted long distance hike and I actually did over 400 miles. I wasn't unhappy with my performance in 2011 and I walk into the first shelter where I'm going to be spending my very first night as a, as a long distance hiker on the Appalachian Trail and I'm with two friends that have come to join me for that first night because they've, you know, known me for years and they want to be there. So we walk up to the Stover Creek shelter and there's a half dozen hikers there and I know four of them and you know we're sitting there talking and chatting back and forth and you know we've got stories that we're telling and, you know, obviously jovial with each other and it's obvious that we know each other and one of the hikers that's sitting there that is new and that this is his first time on the Appalachian Trail and he's brand new to the trail, to the activity, and this is a little before social media had made the trail as interactive online, as interactive online it was, it was still, you know, trail journals and a couple of websites, you know, and and not a lot of interaction. So we're sitting here and he's watching us back and forth, back and forth, and he's like stop, wait a minute. He says we just started today.
Speaker 2:How could you all possibly know each other?
Speaker 2:And I'm like well, because this trail community is not just the people doing a long distance hike in any given season.
Speaker 2:It's it's the people that may have never hiked, may be dreaming of hiking and everything in between. It's service providers, it's trail angels, it's just people that fall in love with the outdoors, being on the trail, everything that a long distance hike is inside each individual person and the fact that we are a huge, huge community of very extroverted introverts. A lot of people on the trail are looking for that community and it's so hard in the real world because they're not going to go to the bars, they're not going to go to church, they're not going to join clubs of things that they're not particularly interested in, and those communities don't always exist in those other activities. You know you can be a football player, you know a football fan and go to all the tailgating parties, you know that your favorite team has, and enjoy that sense of community for a couple of hours, but that's when it ends. It doesn't continue off of that moment, it doesn't become part of your life. The way the Appalachian Trail experience creates community for people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you make a really good point about I don't think people realize it's it's, it's there's the hiking going on, but it's all that support that is around the hiking, hikers and the hiking, like the trail angles, like like these little small towns along the way that have trail days and different things like that. I know our son said it was amazing he, when he needed something, somebody appeared, or I mean it was just one of those things and it was true, you know, was true all the way up, and it wasn't just him experiencing that, everybody was experiencing that to some level it is, it is um, it's way beyond.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make any sense and it's real hard to explain to people. When we say things like the trail provides, the world doesn't provide you. If you lose your spoon, you know going to work, you're going to have to go find a spoon because you're not going to just be gifted a spoon from the Appalachian Trail but on the AT you can lose a spoon and use sticks for a day or two and sit down on a rock one day and there'd be a spoon laying there. Or come walking through the trees in Pennsylvania and find a hand-carved wooden spoon hanging in a tree. That's there for you and that's the kind of providing that people don't understand.
Speaker 2:And then the other part when we talk about trail magic, I talk about two kinds of trail magic. I talk about trail magic and the magic of the trail. And the magic of the trail gives us a kind of trail magic that is a beautiful sunset that takes your heart away. That takes your heart away. A moment of conversation beside a fire that makes you feel connected to human beings, a moment of vulnerability, you know, on the trail where you have to ask for help. These are all things that you know, is hard to explain to someone that hasn't hasn't done this yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this warms my heart, just. I mean just sitting here talking with you and and what is happening there is just it's magic.
Speaker 2:It really is magic on so many levels, people, but when you talk about and when you put, but it's not and this is what people have a hard time understanding Not everyone on the Appalachian Trail, in the community around the hike and around the trail, and that's everything from the trail clubs and the people building and maintaining the trail to the organizations that are tasked with with, you know, protecting the trail and keeping the trail safe and funded. Um, you know, there's there's layers of those. But then the individuals. You know that the individuals that are not part of organizations, they're just, you know, they, they, they want to be a part of this activity, regardless of whether they're hikers or not.
Speaker 2:And you know, I tell people all the time that every parking lot that you hit along the trail, every website or Facebook page or group or your followers on your YouTube channel, all of these people have an interest in what you're doing and they become the booster club.
Speaker 2:They become that I call it trailgating. They become the people that are putting tailgating encouragement out there for people. They're the ones that put their phone number out there so that they can be available if someone needs something in an emergency. They want to be involved and they want to be encouraging and mentoring or they just want to watch. You know a lot of people go to the Boston Marathon and throng the sides of the street to watch people run. They're never going to run a marathon, they're not going to run across a Walmart parking lot, but they can be very invested in what you're doing and be there to cheer you on and encourage you and help if you need it. And I think that that's one of the things that that people do find surprising. They don't realize how prevalent and how important it's going to be in to their hike, at least at some points.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, yeah, it's just. It's just an amazing, amazing thing and it sounds like it's grown over the years and it continues to grow and there's more people that want to get involved and help and such. Let's talk about trail names and some of the different trail I mean.
Speaker 2:So you want to explain that to people who don't know that are listening um, you know, somewhere along the way it became a tradition to have a, a nickname on trail. You know either a name that you came to the trail with, that you wanted people to be called, because for a lot of people, you know, especially back in the in the 70s, going to the trail wasn't as much of a social pilgrimage as it is today. You know there were much fewer people. They were definitely more the same about the experience than is different, but it was still different and one of the things was there was people hiking more alone than they do today and really looking for that experience. What has happened over the years that the number of people doing long distance hikes has increased and the popularity of long distance hiking, you know, all over the world has increased is the connectivity and the access to information through social media and the internet. And you know we started seeing things pop up in commercials back in the 80s, you know, or in the 90s. But I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail and it's like they said, appalachian Trail, you know, or questions on Jeopardy that were. The answer was the Appalachian Trail. What is the Appalachian Trail? And people are able to learn about it and find out. You know, get connected to that along in a way that they never could before.
Speaker 2:And one of the things about long distance hiking every year I attend the Appalachian Long Distance Hiking Association gathering and this year was 27 years that I've gone to this weekend get together of ALDA. Some of the people that I get to see there every year it's like a family reunion are people that are the first people to hike the trail. I met Earl Schaefer there many years ago, the first person to ever do the entire Blatchen Trail in one year. I go back there every year to be reminded that our family on this trail is very deep. It goes back generations. I'm on my third generation of hikers. You know I had a kid that hiked this year. I had a kid that that was hiking and when he introduced himself to me he told me who his, who, his mother and father were and it was like so touching because his mother and father had met at my house 25 years before and had gone on to build a life together and have children and raise a family and raise a thru-hiker and that was just remarkable, remarkable.
Speaker 2:And but the connectivity and you know the community growing is definitely. You know social media has has been the biggest thing, the connectivity that our cell phones give us, you know, the ability to, you know to be more real time with, with people that that we're, you know, working with and helping or, you know, want to support on the trail. You know, working with and helping or, you know, want to support on the trail. You've got groups and organizations and clubs that you know want to share the joy of this trail with their members, whether they're hikers or not. So a lot of church groups and scout groups and women's clubs and you know town, you know committees that put together events and things for the for the trail. So so, definitely, you know, while there's always been a very, very strong core group of people that have stayed involved with the trail from the first time that they hiked it, you know we have people that like, like Elmer and and like Warren Doyle, and you know some of our hikers that are, you know, 50,000 plus mile hikers on long distance trails in the United States. They've, they've never gone away.
Speaker 2:So, while most people will do the trail and it's a one and done, they will hike the Appalachian Trail, mark it off their bucket list and go on to something else in their lives. A lot of them never really leave. One of my memes that I did about 10 or 12 years ago it was a beautiful little stretch of the trail up here, above, above, you know, here in Uniquit County, and I just said you can leave the trail, but she will never leave you and some people will look at it and they don't get it. And then some people look at it and they know exactly. They know exactly what it means. Another one of my bumper stickers says the Appalachian Trail ruined my life and some people look at it. Well, how rude, you know that's so horrible.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, because you don't get it yet you don't get it yet that the rest of your vacations, for the rest of your life, will be revolving around your sections on the Appalachian trail that you still need to do. I know people that have taken 40 years to do the entire trail. I have watched families come to the trail and two or three years later the kids are coming back to do a solo hike on their own. The family hiked together five years ago and now the kids are coming back to do another hike on their own and that community continues to build and I don't see it changing.
Speaker 2:Because people go back to that real world and they often have a very hard time with depression and with getting back into their normal routines, because life on the trail and along the trail is a completely different creature than what most people have ever experienced and while they find it very reassuring and comforting and fun and you know they get to meet a lot of people and get to use those trail names because that's what we were talking about as a little bit of a buffer between them and the real world you know, if I have a trail name and you don't, a buffer between them and the real world.
Speaker 2:You know, if I have a trail name and you don't know my real name in the real world, then I can be something different on the trail. I can try out. You know, I tell people all the time if you're not a really pleasant person to be around and your family has told you to go take a hike because you're not a very pleasant person to be around, if you come to the trail and you change your name to you know, fart Blossom and you decide that you're going to fake being nice, you can fake being nice for a couple of weeks and it might catch on. You might actually enjoy being a nice person. And you know, trail names give people that a little bit of anonymity. It gives them a chance to say something about who they are. You know, it's like you know, if you got a trail name like Fart Blossom, it's definitely because you have some gastrointestinal problems and other people have noticed.
Speaker 1:And you don't really. Most people don't name themselves right, most people get named.
Speaker 2:It's about half and half and it always has been about half and half. Some people love the tradition of getting named on the trail. Unfortunately, most of the names that you get on the trail are because of something you did wrong, something stupid, something ugly, sometimes something. You can't actually use that trail name in public. And then your trail name has to have a name for when you're in town, because it's not a nice name.
Speaker 2:So accepting a name for when you're in town because it's it's not a nice name, so accepting a name that someone gives you on the trail, you know, because you fell and face planted, uh-huh, you're gonna be face plant. You should be face plant now. You're gonna be face plant for the rest of your life because of a fall, because you stumbled and hit your, hit your face nothing exciting, you know. But if nothing exciting, you know. But if you name yourself something, you know that means something to you, you know. If you call yourself, you know Phoenix, because and no one has to understand why you call yourself Phoenix but you know what you've been through and what brought you to the trail and what you're hoping to accomplish by a long distance hike and the reason that you to the trail and what you're hoping to accomplish by a long distance hike, and the reason that you chose the trail named Phoenix for yourself is exceptionally personal and matters to you. Yeah, so I definitely have seen, seen both ways.
Speaker 1:What are some of your and I and I do One of the things about that. The trail is, people are out there for a lot of different reasons and there is transformation happening for them, whether that was their intention or not. So for some it was and for some not. What are some of the stories that stick out for you as far as those things that you've witnessed with people?
Speaker 2:you know I I have terabytes of photos that go back all the way to the 80s of of long distance hikers on the appalachian trail. I can look at a group picture of 10 people standing around my van, you know, from 20 years ago and go. This story, this story, this story, and you know I can tell you the story of how they came to the trail, wanting to be an uber duber you know athlete and wanting to, you know, hike the trail as fast as they could, because they were expected back at work or their family had only given them permission to be gone for three months. And you know they come to the trail and it's just something they're going to get done. It's a thing they're going to conquer and accomplish, um, and, and they find out that hiking's hard, that that camping is hard, that the weather's hard, that that camping is hard, that the weather's hard, that the terrain is hard. You know that there's a lot of things about it that's very difficult and it also gives people so much time with themselves and in their own head and in their own heart that a lot of people become very vulnerable. And that's not something that they expected. They thought this, they thought they were athletes and that this was just another athletic event. You know that they did not expect things to start being important to them in a way that it does. So I have watched so many of those stories that it's one of the things we were talking about.
Speaker 2:If I ever start finding a way to share these stories there's no shortage of stories I'll give you one quick one and I'm not known for quick stories, sorry. I had a gentleman who was staying at a local business and found out we were going to be doing a birthday party for one of his fellow hikers and wanted to come and join us for dinner and birthday cake and hanging out around the fire for for the birthday party. Um, so, you know, even though it was going to be, you know, like at seven o'clock and he was used to going to sleep, at eight o'clock he came to the cookout. We had a beautiful evening, we we had a nice meal, we had, you know, a couple of different people had cooked and made cakes and and we had this amazing, amazing fun evening with about 15 people.
Speaker 2:And at some point he got really, really this is 30 days into his hike and he was getting very, very antsy and getting very frustrated and and a little, a little rude and he's like, well, this is just totally unacceptable. I, you know, I'm in bed, I want, I need to be in bed by eight because I need to start hiking at six in the morning. You know, and I've got you know, and this is just you know, half of these people aren't even going to hike tomorrow. Now that they've done this, this is just you know, this is unacceptable. I need you to take me back to my, to my room, because I'm ready to, you know, to go to sleep. And this is, this is ridiculous. And he left with me a little angry and we tried to talk about it a little bit and he was just, you know, in his, in his late 50s, newly retired from a very, very demanding office job that he had held for many, many years, he needed, he needed, a long distance hike very much and his long distance hike that he had in his mind was not exactly what was happening and he was very angry about it, very frustrated about it and, um, not very he was, he was, he was really having a hard time with the fact that so many other people were not as worried about his hike as he was. So, you know, I said goodbye and wished him the best of luck and never dreamed of seeing him again.
Speaker 2:30 days later he was in Northern Virginia and came back to Trail Days in Damascus, virginia, and I'm sitting at my drum circle and bonfire that I did for 25 years and I see this man dancing around the firelight to the drum beats and to the shouts and yelling of everyone having a good time around the fire, and I'm watching this guy just dance, dance, dance around the fire and he's wearing all red and he's wearing has, is carrying a big red umbrella and he's using the umbrella to dance in the rain around the fire. And he comes around the fire and comes and turns around and looks at me and I recognized him and I'm like, oh, oh, wow, hi, how are you doing? Doing where did you come from? Because it had been a long you know it had been a month since I had seen him in the in the Damascus area. Um, so I knew he had come back from the hike and he said we'll have to talk later.
Speaker 2:Later we did get a chance to talk and he said that there was a lot of things that a lot of people had said to him and a lot of anger and frustration that one day he just hit a wall and said this is not for me. I'm going to go home. I could be at home doing yard work and spending time with my wife and my grandchildren and doing something else, but this isn't what I want to do anymore because I don't like the way other people are doing it and it's not working out the way I thought it was going to work out. So he said I think I'm going to go ahead and get off the trail. But he still had to get to a road crossing that he could make those arrangements and get off the trail.
Speaker 2:He didn't say what, but something happened and there were three or four days that he ended up in a couple of places that he had to sit and watch people and talk to people. I think he had an injury that he had to deal with for a few days and make arrangements to get home. And something clicked and something changed and he said why don't I try just having a good time? Why don't I try cutting back my mileage a little bit and maybe just try to try to have a good time and see what happens? And he said it. It worked, he said, because I'm still hiking just fine, but I'm hiking much happier and in a much better frame of mind and with a group of amazing people that I never would have met doing the trail the way I was doing it, and it was remarkable to see that.
Speaker 2:Now, what was really remarkable to see that was, five years later to be sitting at a picnic table in Maine, at a restaurant in Monson, right before the 100 Mile Wilderness, and that same gentleman walking over and sitting down and saying I bet you don't remember me, but I said I bet you I do, and telling me all the hikes that he had done, all the trail magic that he had done, all the support he had provided for others, all the mentoring that he had done for people wanting to do long distance hikes, and all the things that he had changed in his life to revolve around the trail. And one of those, one of those was to move to the end of the end of the trail where he could look at Katahdin on a regular basis. So it was pretty remarkable and that again, that is one story of thousands of thousands, because I think a lot of people will finish the trail and don't necessarily. You know they don't stay active in social media. You know they don't. They don't talk to you know they don't they don't stay plugged into the community, but they still have that core group of trail family that they stay in constant, regular contact with, sometimes for the rest of their lives and um, and that you know that's definitely, you know, one of the transformative things that I've seen. Um I've definitely have seen people that were um not healthy that became healthier. I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2:The Appalachian Trail is actually a very good fitness plan because you get in really good shape, you lose a lot of weight and then you start losing all your resources and you start losing all your muscle and you start going the other direction. Before you're finished, your body is used up and you're exhausted and then you go home and you eat like a hiker and you gain all extreme weight loss and you know athleticism and then you go all the way in the other direction. Sometimes it's not always the most positive thing. Sometimes the transformation is maybe something in your heart and mind that you, that you were headed in one direction in the real world. But I'm going to stop and do the AT before I go to law school and then you do the AT and you never go to law school.
Speaker 2:And I had a had a gentleman contact me years ago about his son who, well, he, he took a gap year and did the AT but he's done now. But now he wants another gap year because he wants to go make snow and become a snowboarder in Colorado. He says, but he needs to get into school because he's going to. You know he needs, he's not going to be competitive and he's not going to be. You know he needs to get into his law program because this is a third generation, you know family of attorneys and he's. When. When do you think he's going to come back to normal? When do you think he's going to buckle down and do the things that he needs to do? And and I hated telling them that he might not ever that maybe that wasn't his path and maybe the trail led him in a different direction that was better for his life, or at least his choice. And in that case, 20 years later, the guy still never went back to law school. He never did.
Speaker 1:Wow, that time in nature is so important. It really is. That time in nature is is just to have to be able to think through things that we need to process. That's my, that's my top. Now he wants to eat. I'm gonna ignore him. You know, sometimes in in we're so busy, busy, busy busy that we don't get to process things, and so having that time in nature is so, so important among all the other things that are happening on the trail as well.
Speaker 2:It's you know, what you know, I, I, um. There are so many different layers and so many different aspects of a long distance hike. You know that time in nature, that pushing your body and learning how to move, and you know learning how to deal with your fears and with your insecurities of being being out there hiking and backpacking and being in the woods and being alone for many, many hours because, no matter how crowded people think of the trail, you're alone.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I gotta hold on, I gotta, yeah, hold on. So, janet, tell us you're gearing up for a new season, a new hiker season. You got some hikers out there right now in the dead of winter, and we were talking about how you are that y'all are getting a huge winter storm up there and it's like dropping down to zero and, with wind chill below that, hikers out there, but those aren't. That's not not really the season. So you're gearing up and what does the season look like? What does a typical day look like for you once the hiker season really starts kicking in, which is sort of like april? Right, mid-march, april is when the hikers are coming out.
Speaker 2:For many years I've had a happy new year post that I put up. That is a um, that my new year is March 1st. Um, that 20, uh 23 years ago there was a group of people online and this was on before, before social media. But on some, some websites that were available you know that were interactive to some degree, a whole lot of people decided oh wow, there's so many people going to be on the trail this year. It's going to be so crowded in April. We're going to start in March.
Speaker 2:So they started this huge movement that for months they planned it March 1st. March 1st. We're going to have a March 4th on the AT. We're going to March 4th and you know there's going to be this huge group of people that are going to start in March, the first week in March. And it was a big deal because that was not normal. That was really early Didn't mean that we didn't have people that have always hiked through the winter. We've always had people starting on January the 1st. We've always had a number of people, you know, january, february starters and March starters Over the last 20, 23 years, since that group of 2,000 hikers really pushed that envelope back to the 1st of March. So now we have people that start in numbers from the middle of February. There will be numbers that start every day all the way through till the end of April.
Speaker 2:So what time does your day start.
Speaker 1:I mean, how long? What's a typical day look like for you?
Speaker 2:You know, a lot of people don't understand that I'm that, I'm kind of I'm not really a business, but I do provide services for people when needed and when I'm, when I'm able to do so.
Speaker 1:Well, you hit your mic.
Speaker 2:There we go. Um, I have, um, you know. So I try, I try not to schedule a lot of things that will make me unavailable to the person who needs me organically. Um, I like being able to be there and someone go hey, this is my third day, my shoes are killing me, I've got to get new shoes or I'm not going to be able to walk another day and I want to be able to help that person right at that moment, not tell that person that, oh, I've got three shuttles lined up and there's nothing I can do to help you. I'll call someone else that. I'll call somebody else that can come and get you.
Speaker 2:If I want to spend four hours on a parking lot, on the Springer parking lot, doing a pack shakedown, I don't want to be interrupted because I have to leave and go to the airport to to provide a shuttle service for someone. So my day generally starts at about six thirty seven o'clock in the morning. You know, with just trying to become a human being, mornings are not my forte. For many years, with Lyme disease, I had a parasomnia sleep disorder that created major problems for me early in the morning and as I've gotten older and with some of those problems that are still chronic. I have to have some time to wake up and get going. But you know, every single day can be completely different from the day before. And if I start, I go to Georgia the first day of March and my very, very, very, very first day may be taking, you know, some people to Springer to get started and that I've collected along the way or that have made arrangements to get to Springer with me that day. For people you know for, for you know since, since it's, it's amazing. So my day may start. You know driving, driving people to to springer. You know getting them on the trail, taking their beginning pictures, and you know doing those last little. You know tweaks on packs and you know a couple of little odds and ends that are in my bounce box that they might need, that they've forgotten. You know batteries or gloves or a hat or something, and then they continue on the way and then I may, you know, have get a phone call from one of the ridge runners that there's a hiker in trouble. You know that that is going to be at a road crossing. Can I pick them up and and and help them? And it may be anything, it may be that they're sick. It may be that they got to the trail and realized that they forgot their tent, you know. And now they're getting ready to what am I supposed to do? I don't have a tent because I left it laying on the kitchen counter in Albuquerque, new Mexico. So you know, it can be anything. It can be, you know, injury, illness.
Speaker 2:You know had a gentleman call me and go I need you to meet me at this road crossing and I will pay you whatever you need to meet me at this road crossing and I will pay you whatever. You need to meet me at that road crossing. But I need you to meet me at that road crossing with a pizza, a beer and two cigars and I will pay you for the pizza and beer and two cigars. He says but I need that. I happened to be in town at the time. I got the phone call.
Speaker 2:So I'm like I don't know you, you know, and this is your second day on the trail, but I did it and I was really happy. I did it because it made him really happy that I did it, because he thought he was just going to throw it out there and see what happened and the fact that I was actually able to make that happen for him, you know, was a bonding moment for us and it was also just, you know, just a fun thing to do and a fun thing to be able to do for someone. So then, you know, I might, I might have to go a hundred miles, you know, to take someone to an airport, to put them back on a plane going home, because only a few miles they've realized this isn't the Appalachian Trail on the brochure everybody talks about. You can do it straight off the couch and just go hike and the trail will train you. And I said, yes, that's true, but you still have to be able to start from a point of being able to walk a distance and being able to be outdoors and to take care of yourself.
Speaker 2:And some people find that they can't do that and, no matter how much they had romanticized the idea of doing a long distance hike, that they're not going to be able to do it the way they thought they were going to be able to do it. Um, those are, those are hard. Those are those are hard because often, you know, if I picked that person up two days before and I drove them to springer and told them goodbye and sent them off with some hand warmers for that first cold night and three days later they're calling me to leave their adventure that they had planned on being out there for six months. It can be very, very, very difficult. Um, I want to be able to be organic and and able to do those things for as many people as as I can.
Speaker 1:Um you're so present, you have to be. I think the thing about that is you are so present with people and I noticed that about you when, when we met you're very, very present to whatever is going on with these people and you truly are a blessing in it and are in an angel in the true sense of the word you know that that that's very, that's very good that it works that way, because what most people don't understand is that it doesn't matter what I do for someone, it doesn't matter what I've been able to you know, to provide as service or treats or trail magic for people over the years.
Speaker 2:I have gotten it back from all of them and I get it back from people I've never met before. You said that there has to be stories that I don't even know about, of things and moments that have mattered to people, but I've loved hearing about it in the very beginning, in the very, very beginning, when someone would tell me a story about what they you know. You know I was at your house and you gave me a new pair of shoes and you know I've never forgotten about that or whatever happened, and it would make me really happy to hear those stories. But now, especially with social media and messenger and you know being able to find people and with the um, the public aspect and of long distance hiking, that is new in the last 20 years. You know the, the fact that people know people that have hiked and can see their pictures and look at their videos and all of that interaction and people find me that maybe hadn't you know that that I haven't seen in 15 or 20 years and it happens on a very regular basis.
Speaker 2:It is one of my favorite, favorite motivators and adrenaline rushes. And what is it? Serotonin moments for me is it's like getting a hug. You know I'll get a phone call, I get a message, I get a, I get a text, I get a that just says you know, thank you for that water you gave me at that road crossing, you know, 15 years ago, and you know, thank you for letting me come into your home when I was sick and stay there for weeks. All these things are things that I get back. I get back when I'm doing it and I continue to get back and receive the blessings from the small things that I can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and it is so true that the more we give, the more we get back, and so that's that's really what you're describing there. On steroids, On steroids on steroids. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, because part of you know, part of you know what does my year look like? You know I never. You know I never really. You know, when I got into this whole Appalachian Trail thing, I had children and a home and I was stationary and you know I didn't have the luxury of living the lifestyle that I enjoy now. Now, a lot of people don't look at that lifestyle as anything they would have any interest in doing. Some of them think they do, and then I'm like yeah, no, you probably don't want to live my life at all. You don't want to.
Speaker 1:It's made for you. It's made for you.
Speaker 2:It's made for you, or you know, someone asked me one time that was very concerned about the fact that I have no money and the fact that I have no savings and I have no assets and I have no credit history. I don't really exist in the real world the way most people exist in the real world and they were like, well, do you make a living doing what you do? Do you make a living doing what you do? Do you make a living? And I'm like, wow, I don't think that I make a living by anyone's standards or definition in the real world, but I've made a life. I've made a life that has made me exceptionally rich and has given me so much that I can't imagine getting that satisfaction from a nine-to-five job doing something that that maybe I don't enjoy doing.
Speaker 2:Um, doesn't mean that this trail stuff is not hard. It's not. It's frustrating. Sometimes it can be very trying and difficult and you know there's there's a lot of I mean there's a lot of people out there and every single person brings their own expectations and baggage and and and personality to the trail. They also bring their the problems and their issues a lot of times that they're trying to overcome on the trail they're. You know, the last time they shot up heroin was in the bus station, getting on the bus to come to the Appalachian Trail to try to kick a habit that was going to kill them. An older police officer with PTSD that you know comes to the trail to try to find, you know, some peace and healing and you know, but is maybe not a very nice person and maybe you know it's not, maybe maybe their hike is more important to them and the way they're treating people causes problems for other people.
Speaker 2:So there's always, you know, the dynamics of a group of people coming together. We're not all the same, we're not all the same backgrounds, we're not all the same socioeconomic categories. We're not all the same, we're not all the same backgrounds, we're not all the same socioeconomic categories, we're not all the same educational backgrounds, religious backgrounds. You know we're not all the same race, we're not all the same sexual orientation. It's a very, very mixed bag of people who end up coming to do long distance hiking.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make any real sense, you know it's not. It's not just granola crunching hippies or athletes or, you know, whatever it's. It's a real mix of people and that that creates, you know, a lot of um constantly changing dynamics among people and in so, besides, people just learning to live on the trail and learning to to take care of themselves on the trail and to take care of the trail and to protect the asset and to protect the resource that this Appalachian Trail is in all of our lives. Um, now they have to learn to get along with other people and how to deal with. You know the leave no trace issues and backwards ethics of. You know how do we? You know shelter etiquette. You know hostile etiquette how do we, how do we interact with people? So you know there's there's a lot of of a lot of things that come into play that I deal with on a on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:Well, you are amazing, you are just amazing, and I really do hope that you will. Janet and I were talking before we started recording. She's thinking about doing a podcast and I was like, oh, you've got to do a podcast, she's got so so many stories to tell, and and we've just sort of scratched the surface here, and and we could keep going on and on, and I and I don't want to take up any more of your time, but I do have a final question for you. Actually, I've got two. I've got two for you. First one is what would you say to your 20 year old self?
Speaker 2:what would you say to your 20 year old self? Oh, my 20 year old self, um, my 20 year old self thought that I was a more worldly person than other people because I was the first person in my family to go to college. I had aspirations to to be something and do something different than most of my family had any understanding of. They couldn't understand the quality, understand the value of education. They couldn't understand why I would want to do this, you know. And then my life goes the same direction that most girls my age that live, you know, in rural country USA. I married my, I got pregnant and married my high school boyfriend and we started the family route at 20 years old, um, at 21. And my daughter's birthday's next week, you know so. So the big four o's coming, the big four o's coming up. And that blows me away, because my 20 year old self, having that first baby, could not see 40 years in the future. I couldn't see what the future held and what was where I was going to be at this point. But your question is what would I tell my 20 year old self? My 20 year old self would would say tell Tony that you love him very much, but that you're going to go for a long hike on the Appalachian Trail and, you know, get to know yourself a little bit and get to see part of the country and and then maybe I'm going to travel. You know you're, you should go and you should travel and you should go to different places and you should go see these things that you've read about and things that you've enjoyed in movies and you should go meet people that speak different languages and you should see this world before you become a mother and start a family and have to worry about a mortgage and school and schedules and work and life.
Speaker 2:And I don't regret my children. I don't resent that. I had my family at a young age, but it's hard to have both. It's really, really difficult to do those things when you do have the responsibilities of a family and and I think it's one of the reasons I enjoy seeing my families on the trail that are out there with their children having those experiences together, because that wasn't something that that I could have even dreamed of doing with my children. I didn't know how to be that kind of a parent, but I enjoy seeing that with other people. So I would tell my 20-year-old self to go live a little bit, have some adventures, you know, get to see the world a little bit, and you know that there would be time for that family. And who knows what direction I would have been in, don't know.
Speaker 1:All right, here's my final question what does a meaningful, moxie-filled life look like to you?
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, pushing yourself to live outside of your comfort zone. A lot of women have come to the trail in the last 10, 15 years in record numbers, and so often they were they were me, they were, you know they were either expected to go into a career or a business or start their family and they never had that opportunity and maybe they were afraid. You know social media. You know the whole social perception of going into the woods is. You know that it's dangerous and it's scary and that you should carry a gun and you know that you should be afraid. And watching these women accept that challenge and come to the trail and sleep in that tent that first night that they've ever slept outdoors by themselves in their entire lives, that's moxie. You know. Watching that person that fell and broke her arm and is wearing a cast, continue to hike day after day after day only able to use one arm, or watching that person lose a partner on the trail and have to continue alone and on their own, that's moxie. Watching that attorney that will walk away from his career path because it's not serving him, serving his needs, and come to the trail or go do something else and find something that gives meaning to his life, um, that makes him happier than he ever would have dreamed of being, um, watching people that are just willing to put themselves out there for other people, put themselves in situations that might be a little uncomfortable, challenging. And it doesn't have to be a long distance hike, it doesn't have to be a through hike by any means, through hike, by any means. Sometimes it just means that they're willing to take themselves and put themselves in a different situation and be there and enjoy it or feel it or go through it. Or, you know, we use this. You know misery loves company. You know, and especially with things like the Appalachian Trail, a lot of people have never walked for four hours in the rain. A lot of people have never, you know, had to poop in the woods. A lot of people have never had to deal with those things. And as they face those challenges, it does things, it does things to them and if they're able, you know. So the Moxie in meaning, I think in meaning in Moxie it's kind of like the same.
Speaker 2:Every single person that I've met coming to the Appalachian Trail has their own expectations, criteria, reasons for being there, and I think that that takes Moxie just to make that first step and declare to yourself, to your family, to your friends this is what I'm going to do. I am going to go hike the Appalachian Trail. That takes a level of moxie on so many for so so many people, because most people are not. Most people are not greeted when someone says I'm going to go hike the Appalachian Trail, their family and loved ones don't look at them and go. Well, that's awesome, that'll be so much fun. You just have a great time and we'll make sure you know we'll. Most people don't have that. Most people go. You're gonna do what? Are you gonna carry a gun? You know um, it, it's.
Speaker 2:It's definitely takes some moxie to want to do something that you've never done before. It takes moxie to do something that is so out of your everyday reality, of your life. You know one day you're. You know you're in a 5,000 square foot. You know home with you know six bedrooms with bathrooms and a palatial yard. You know an orchard in the backyard. You know hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cars in your driveway, millions of dollars in your bank account. Putting a pack on and walking off of Springer Mountain takes a moxie. That anyone is going to it's pretty much the same for everyone.
Speaker 2:So, you are a witness to this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are a witness to this every single day and and your meaning and moxie that you bring to each and every situation, you are a blessing and you, you are a blessing, and you to all the people that you encounter. I, I so appreciate your, your stories, your vulnerability, and you just make the world a better place just by being in it, and so I really it means it means a lot because it it means a lot, because it means a lot.
Speaker 2:This community has been exceptionally important in my life. It would have been important in my life if I had gone in another direction, you know, with a real career and you know maybe some different initials in front of my name, but this is the thing in my life that keeps calling me back and getting ready for a couple of events coming up over the next few weeks. You know, helping people get ready for the trail, sharing stories and experiences and delivering unsolicited advice to people.
Speaker 1:Tell people how they can get a hold of you. Where can they find you on social media?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm pretty easy to find. It's actually kind of fun. I'm Google-able. You can Google the Miss Janet Appalachian Trail and you'll find out all kinds of things about me. I didn't even know we're there. Um, someone said, well, we didn't have your, your address, and I said I'm not gonna give anybody my mailing address. I said the very few people that get my mailing address know where I'm at. I don't need them to know where where they can find me. I need to know where I can find them, but they don't need to know where they can find me. I need to know where I can find them, but they don't need to know where they can find me. So it's this kind of interaction and a chance to share with someone else these stories is just priceless and I appreciate you asking me to participate with you today.
Speaker 1:Well, the pleasure is all mine. It really is all mine. My heart is really full having this chat with you. So check out Ms Janet. You can find her on Facebook. And, ms Janet, what's your and what's your contact on Facebook?
Speaker 2:Just Miss Janet.
Speaker 1:You know, just Miss Janet.
Speaker 2:I have another Facebook only allows you 5,000 friends and you know they don't understand that. I have a lot more people that I want to stay in touch with and see their kitten videos and watch their kids go off to school. You know, I don't want my personal profile to be a business. I want it to be where I can interact. It's where all my cool kids live. You know, it's my, it's my black book, it's my address book. So I need I need to keep that. But I also have a Facebook page called I think right now I have it's Miss Janet Shuttles, so it's it's another way to reach me. I'm on instagram, um, as the miss, the miss janet, um, and I do a lot more of my photography there. I also uh, dexter also has a tiktok channel, so he's kind of a big deal on the trail, so he has his own tiktok channel so everybody.
Speaker 2:So I'm pretty, I'm pretty easy to, I'm pretty easy to track down and we'll.
Speaker 1:we'll put all that in the show notes. I'll put some of those links in the show notes so people can reach out, and thank you again so much. This has been such a pleasure. And we wish you all the best, and we'll be watching for you out there on the trail.
Speaker 2:I can't wait watching for you out there on the trail. I can't wait and please, you know, if any of you have heard this podcast and see me on the trail, you know, let me know that. That's where you heard me and because I think it's kind of fun. It kind of, you know, kind of tells how our lives and you know your story and your experience on the trail and your family's experience on the trail connects with me and connects with other people, which makes this tapestry of a trail where we're all threads that are part of the story.
Speaker 1:And what a rich tapestry it is. So we'll be looking also forward to hearing about your podcast soon too.
Speaker 2:It'll probably be called the people are the trail.
Speaker 1:I love it. Love it. Well, thank you again, and, um, I'm going to wrap things up. Uh, thanks for listening everybody, and be well, and we will talk soon. Bye, now, if this podcast was valuable to you, it would mean so much if you could take 30 seconds to do one or all of these three things Follow or subscribe to the podcast and, while there, leave a review and then maybe share this with a friend if you think they'd like it. In a world full of lots of distractions, I so appreciate you taking the time to listen in. Until next time, be well and take care. Thank you, thank you.